Hope Solo, the former United States women’s national team goalkeeper, tweeted
her delight at attending the Manchester derby, saying it was the “biggest
rivalry” in the game. In the free-for-all of social media, it won her no
favours. She was ridiculed by neutrals who threw out other classic rivalries
and by United supporters delivering the familiar trope that it was a one-way
enmity, since the red half is supposedly so much bigger than the blue half.

She did raise an age-old issue. Some derbies are so big locally, so
overbearing, that they dwarf everything else a club might do during